"That week!"

This week has been "that week".  That week in a training cycle where the world and his dog decide to chuck everything at you that they've got and you either curl up in a little ball or dig your heels in and say "fuck you, I am not giving up."

This week was about endurance.  It was to be my highest mileage week so far, my highest elevation week so far, a huge amount of time on my feet along with a small amount of quality.  It was a week for building strength and stamina, with just a few little pushes to get the heart rate up.  It was a week to approach fresh, bouncy and full of optimistic boing.

It was not a week for two huge storms bringing horrendously high winds and rain, or a cold, or a nasty fall resulting in badly bruised knees (cheers Pupster), or blisters.

The blisters were the icing on the cake even though they arrived before most of the rest.  They've annoyed me all week, because they were my own fault.  For some reason on Monday I went out to do my longest run for over a year, largely off road, wearing trail shoes and ridiculously thin lightweight socks.  Not the sort of good quality nice running socks I may race in, just cheap crappy not even really running socks.  I think at some point they claimed to be compression socks but even before I'd tried them on they were clearly lying and I only bought because I thought they'd tuck up nicely inside skinny jeans and keep my calves warm in winter.  I did not get them to keep my feet softly cushioned through 22 miles of running in hard shoes.  Being grateful for small mercies, I was so cold that I didn't actually hear even a murmur from the blisters at all until around fiften minutes after getting back from my run when my extremities started to thaw out.  Then they started shouting expletives at me and continued to do so every time I put trainers on for several days.  With no-one but myself to blame, I gritted my teeth, found my nicest socks, and got on with it.  

So, this week, or "that week," or possibly "that bloody week," or on at least one occasion "that bastard bloody buggering week that can fuck off back to where it came from and take its storms with it!", has been a bit of a tough one.  But actually it finished better than I had hoped and in fact better than it had started. 

When I was trudging round a very hilly 22 miler in Storm Ciara on Monday and wondering why it was feeling quite as tough as it was my head was in a pretty bleak place.  The start of a 70 mile week and I was struggling with a painfully slow pace.  The pace I was running shouldn't have felt that hard so early in the run, or at the end.  Yes, it was windy and the weather was utterly foul, snow, sleet, wind, hail, freezing rain.  Yes, the terrain was tough.  I wanted off road so ran largely on grass verges between various hilly local off road areas and then ran round and up and down them.  But it shouldn't have felt that hard.  It was a miserable run and I only really enjoyed a brief couple of miles of it when I had a scramble round a very storm damaged Hemlock Open Space.  I wouldn't have dared if it wasn't for the fact there were too many fallen trees for me to scramble over to run any risk of getting knocked over by someone doing a bit of extreme biking, and I didn't even know there was in fact an actual open space at the top.  Yeah, OK, the hint is in the name but I'd never seen it.  The view was pretty special even if the descent was equally terrifying.  That was 5 miles in and the highlight of the run.  The rest was a test of mental strength.

In some ways waking up with a stinking head cold the next day went into the "last thing I need" category, but it also left me feeling a little vindicated.  Of course my long run had been horrific if I'd been fighting the onset of a virus I wasn't aware of.  No need to hang up the trainers just yet.

The rest of the week I slogged on.  My effort session made me question the sanity of the sadistic bastard who wrote it.  Then I remembered I wrote it.  40 minutes of efforts of varying lengths, the wind was howling and I was streaming.    I took a view on it and did it on the treadmill.  Just me in my little corner of the gym, spreading sweat and snot in equally large quantities in a 5 foot area around my treadmill.  Treadmill running is undoubtedly easier than outdoors running, so I hooked myself up to the emergency stop strap and made myself do it quicker.  I didn't puke, quite, and I finished it, actually up on pace.  I felt awful, but I'd done it.  That afternoon while recovery running on the park with my gorgeous girly and encouraging her to pull as she's being trained to my legs took their revenge.  Leeloo pulled, my legs refused to open up to follow, I face planted on concrete.  The resulting bruises to knees and hip were spectacular and painful.  I got up and carried on.

And that was the motto of the week.  Circumstances out of my control are making this hard, get up and carry on.  I did my miles, elevation, my strength training, my core training (not pleasant with a nose which seems to have mutated into a tap set to "on"), and by and large I stuck to pace.

Saturday morning was meant to produce 6 miles of tempo pace running, which at the moment is around the 7:00-7:15 minute mile mark.  I got to the park with my wonderful Pupster to do my warm up and after three miles trudging round in howling wind and rain it became very clear I needed to make a choice.  Either I did my 6 miles tempo and wrote off the next day, or I eased it off a bit and got my mileage in.  Pup dropped home and cleaned I headed back to the park and made the right decision for the week's goal; endurance.  Bumping into a friend a km or so in helped keep me on track.  I did the miles at marathon pace instead of tempo pace, chatted my way round parkrun with a fellow club member and good ol' Dennis, did an extra lap, and while the wind was a pain at that pace it was manageable.

All of which just left Sunday.  I'd thought about running on the treadmill, but when I woke up on Sunday wind speeds were "only" around the 20-30 mph mark which while hard work was in no way dangerous, so I put my big girl pants on and went out for another windy run.  14 miles, some hills, a lot of wind and driving rain, a free exfoliation which some girls would probably pay for, and a target of running just 30 seconds slower than marathon pace for 14 miles.  I knew from the start I couldn't do it.  I was still suffering from the cold, my legs were just so tired from all the training there was no way I could kick out even a little bit, it was going to be a shuffle.  I tried anyway, told myself to start easy and pick it up, and the first couple of (wind assisted) miles were just a little under pace. 

Then I turned into the wind and hit the first hill.  Half way up I encountered a bloke just starting his run.  He made a comment about giving me some competition and I looked at him, 6 foot 6, muscular, strong, probably 15 years my junior, standing there on the corner ready to start his run looking ridiculously well rested and happy, and thought "like fuck you are."  500m later after a brief chat to Mr Young Fit and Healthy I gritted my teeth and wished him a "good run" before picking the pace up by about 45 seconds a mile and determinedly leaving him standing as I pushed on up the hills.  Having made such a move of moderate cockiness there was no way I was slowing down until his attempts to keep up had failed and I'd got far enough ahead to be out of sight, by which point I'd realised I could do it if I wanted to, I just needed to toughen up a bit because it wasn't going to be easy.  It isn't meant to be easy. 

That was the turning point of the run and the rest was by and large on pace despite the utterly horrific bastard wind and occasional wading through flood water.  I was about 10-15 seconds a mile off pace by the end which in the conditions and considering the practical crawl of the first 3 miles I decided I could and would call a win. 

So, 70 miles, 2,000 feet of elevation, hills session, hard interval session, marathon pace run, and a variety of strength and conditioning.  This week is much lower mileage with, I really really hope, an actual race that isn't cancelled due to weather!

I honestly have no idea at all if I can remember how to run fast any more, or dig in through that sort of pain which is so different to the grind through the fatigue, but I am very keen to find out.  C'mon weather, give me a break!

I have no photos at all of me running through horrific conditions, so here's one of my beautiful pup enjoying her run on the park.  Yes, that's the park.  Yes, that's the path!  I'm going to file my morning email encouraging me to volunteer at parkrun this weekend in a brand new folder entitled "Pure Optimism".  Happy running folks, stay safe!

Where did January go?

(Post written on 31 January)

I have no idea what happened to January in terms of training.  Today is not a training day, so for me January is done and I'm looking at my month's training.

January has involved a total of 219 miles with 6,149 feet of elevation climbed. It isn't all about distance but I'm satisfied that there's been some quality training amongst that, particularly over the latter three weeks.  I've done one legs weight session every week plus a body weight and resistance band session most weeks.  Core training once or twice a week, one harder session and one little top up. 

Next month I don't necessarily need to run farther, but I do need more elevation and more strength work. I'm hoping to hit around 2,000 feet a week for the next four weeks.  That's nothing compared to what some do, but I know it'll be hard for me.  In terms of strength training I feel like I'm operating at a bare injury prevention minimum and would like to do more, but it has a huge impact on my running for days afterwards.  I'm not really sure how to deal with that one.

The big down side this month is that I haven't raced at all and in fact I haven't even done a hard parkrun - the one I was meant to do was cancelled due to ice.  Really I should be doing at least one race a month.  Next month I have two races, a 10 mile and a half marathon, and I've promised a hard parkrun on the alternate Saturdays.  Both races are off road, both are undulating, and both will put me well out my racing comfort zone in a way but the nature of the races means the pressure in terms of trying to get near to PB times is off.  They aren't PB courses, I just need to go and race as well as I can.  I'm really excited to see what I can do while also a little daunted by the idea of trying to feel ready for racing in a month where my training is also going to be taking a lot out of me.  Generally I would tend to have a light training week when I have a race at the end, but this isn't feasible when I'm building towards a target race further down the line.  I will just have to race with tired legs.

Cummulative fatigue has started to be a thing.  This will get worse and I will need to get used to it and adjust training if necessary.  On the flip side I have absolutely no injury niggles.  The closest thing I've come to running related injury so far is a bit of chafing from wearing a jacket with only a sports bra underneath and slightly bruised feet.  The bruising has been solved by doing more runs off road and wearing more cushioned shoes for a lot of my steadier running.

In terms of my lifestyle I have made some significant improvements.  I'm not drinking at all on the days before I run, which means five days a week with no alcohol, and on the days I do drink I'm limiting it to a glass or two of wine (please see photo for evidence of said wine consumption).  My diet has also significantly improved and in general I'm feeling a lot better for that.  I wouldn't say it was perfect, there's been the odd evening of excessive pigging out on utter crap, but overall I'm doing much better.  This being said with a Sunday evening glass of wine in my hand of course, but it's only the second day of the week that's involved wine, so definitely much better than I was doing a month or two back!

So bums up everyone, here's to January done, not a great month but a solid month of good training, and February to come where I hope to turn it up a notch. 

A bit of a confidence boost

There's no denying that last week's training went well, and I really needed that. 

Last week was a lower mileage week because I was meant to race at the weekend.  Although I didn't ultimately race I still think that worked well.  I'm setting myself a mileage range rather than a fixed mileage at the moment.  I have certain "key" sessions I want to get done in a week, but around that it's flexible.  I'm finding that leaving the exact details of some runs down to my on the day judgment of my form versus fatigue levels takes the pressure off.  I have my "key" workouts but some of my plan is flexible.  I know some people would find this hard but I think at the moment I'm doing a good job of judging when I'm good tired and when I'm bad tired and adjusting my workouts accordingly.

Last week the plan was lower mileage at around 40 to 50 miles with my expectation being it would be at the lower end.  I wanted a good uphill speed session, something steady and hilly, a couple of days rest and a strong race on Sunday.

The race didn't happen as I had family commitments come up which I didn't begrudge at all, but which neccessitated a change of plans.  The hill speed session went remarkably well given it was done two days after my long run.  My legs bounced back faster than I expected and I almost enjoyed it and followed it up with a heavy weights session in the gym.  The day after that I had planned to do a recovery run but my legs were shot and I realised it was pointless going far.  I ditched my planned run and did a few miles very slowly on nice soft ground on the park with my pupster.  Totally chilled and nothing more than warming my legs up enough to then do some mobility and stretching.  The day after things were looking much better again, legs were recovering, so I headed out and did a slightly longer slightly quicker run to get moving.

In the absence of the race and knowing I'd need to run very early Saturday and Sunday I decided to do a 10 mile tempo run on Saturday morning.  I'd expected to run around 7:30s and to struggle.  Actually it just flowed.  I've not run hard on flat tarmac for a while, I left the backpack I've been forcing myself to get used to carrying at home, put on my nice light road shoes, and just ran.  I ended up running 10 miles at 7:15, with a level of comfort I hadn't expected.  It was a hard run, but it was only the last couple of miles that I started to feel I really had to work to maintain pace.  A few extra miles at parkrun to loosen up before I sat in a car for an hour and a half, and Saturday was about a well over 14 miles day, and I felt great.  I've not really felt that buzz of a good training run to that extent for a while.  I love that feeling of having run hard but not utterly wiped myself out as I may do in a race.

I'd expected to really struggle on Sunday's long slow plod, 16 miles ish to make up to a 30 mile weekend and a 50 mile week.  I had it in my head that I'd cut it short if it felt sensible.  I had an utterly terrible night's sleep on Saturday which is awful for recovery, and in order to fit my run in before heading down to Birmingham for the day I had to get up at 5:30am to do it.  I felt like shit.  Add in some nice tasty abdominal cramping which somehow was getting right down into my quads and it's fair to say when I set off out to meet my friend I was not feeling it, not feeling it at all.

Three miles later the cramping was starting to ease, and I realised that actually my legs were tired but not sore from the the previous day's hard run, and I started to get into it.  The miles went by quickly, I wasn't checking my watch and when I did check after a mile beep and it told me we'd done 9 miles I was surprised.  It was flying by, I was enjoying the route, enjoying the surroundings, it was even starting to get light enough to see the surroundings!  Up and down, up and down, a route that was probably not hilly but definitely on the upper end of undulating, and my legs were just doing their thing.  I felt strong.

The weekend's running really did give me some confidence that the training I'm doing is getting results.  I'm not as quick as I used to be, I do need a race or two to really test myself and I have a couple coming up, but I'm getting quicker again despite so much of my running being really quite slow.  Volume with a bit of quality appears to be gaining me something at least. 

I'm trying to hang on to that feeling as I head into the coming week which is designed push me in a different way.  No snappy bouncy road running, or short intervals, this week is about strength and endurance and digging in when I'm knackered.  There's hills, more hills, strength work, distance, and yep, more hills.  The only "quick" running I have in there is a parkrun.  My target for the next week is 55-65 miles.  I'd like to be near the higher end of that if I can but I've some flexibility to cut a couple of the midweek runs if I need to in order to be able to do the weekend workouts which will be demanding back to back.

I'm excited about training again, and starting to feel like I could get back to my "old self" at some point.  The more I feel like that the higher my motivation to push myself on runs.  I will try and bear that in mind when I'm back at the scene of a previous horror tomorrow; Bramcote Hills, I am coming to get you!

5:30am me mutters "sleep is for the weak" a few times before heading out to do long run on less than 2 hours of the stuff.

That Feeling!

On 9 May 2020 I shall be attempting to complete my first Ultra-Marathon, Dukeries 40.  This is a 40.8 mile trail race through Sherwood Forest and the surrounding area, and it is so far out my running comfort zone it's ridiculous.  Although I enjoy running and run quite a lot, I run predominantly in my completely flat local area and have done very, very little off road running.  The twenty or so miles I ran round Carsington Water yesterday really did drive home the magnitude of the challenge I've set myself.  It was a nice mix of mud, ice, gravel and dirt, really apart from the ice the trails were in very good condition.  It was continuously undulating, much like the race I'm tackling.  My legs started to grumble and the upness and downyness of the whole thing not long after the start.  My feet were squeaking at me that being rammed into hard trail shoes instead of the nice soft little road shoes they're used to was definitely not OK, not OK at all.  Despite two pairs of gloves my hands were painfully cold for most of the run and frequently shovelled up the inside of my jacket sleeves.  The wholly inadequate lightweight hydration pack I was using to get a feel for carrying an extra couple of kg - really the minimum I'll get away with on a 40 mile race in terms of carrying emergency equipment, fuel and liquid - was rather bouncier than I remembered it being and my mobile phone did a good job of putting an apple sized bruise in the middle of my back during the several hours of jiggling.

But it felt great.  It also felt awful at times, but it felt more great.  I utterly love running on freezing but clear mornings.  I drove to Carsington Water and on my arrival at just before 8:00am it was deserted, barely light, and covered in ice.  When I was a mile or so in to my run I had a fabulous view accross the lake and the sun was just threatening to come up.  By the time I hit the same spot on my second lap it was up and the day was glorious.  The first lap was a mental battle as my confidence in my ability to do the run faltered.  The second lap was fine as the body took over.  Running is something my body knows how to do.  The third lap, or partial lap, got tougher but with just three or four miles to go as I brought the pace up a bit, I focussed on the things that were easy.  Breath in, out, in out, left, right, left, right, enjoy the things that feel good, air in my lungs, hands finally warming in the sun, the good feeling of a bit of a kick out as I start to run quicker, heels back, glutes doing their thing, stand up straight, engage the core, not many hills left now, I just went through the list of complete basics to keep reminding myself that it's only running, and running is something I just do.  Oddly, the last couple of miles flew by, and then I felt incredible. 

I stood at the end starting to get my breath back, puffing, stretching, absolutely shattered, but also laughing.  No-one feels this exhilaration after doing something easy, and there I was in a beautiful part of the world in the freezing sunshine and on my own on a Sunday morning I'd run 20 miles.   

So it was a tough run, an eye opener in terms of the challenge I've set myself, but also a great run.  Today my feet still ache a bit but nothing too serious and the back bruise will be gone in a few days;  I'll look into a better way to carry more stuff next time.  My legs are tired but no worrying aches and pains and in fact I feel a lot better than I expected to.  This week's training is planned out and it's going to be a hard one at times, but if I can push myself to the full extent of what I'm capable of I hope to feel as brilliant again after one of this week's runs as I did after yesterday's.

When you can't deny you've been a complete tool!

If ever there was a morning of running that didn't go to plan, this was it.

Last night I got myself an early night after a healthy tea and no booze in order to wake up rested and fresh for parkrun this morning, which I had on as an "absolute all out effort". Before I went to bed I got out my shorts, my club vest, by little socks and my arm warmers. Proper "running fast" clobber. After all, if you're not freezing your arse off in January are you really even trying?

At 1:30am Leeloo decided that she needed to have what can only be described as a bloody good wuff. She doesn't normally do this but the last week or so she's been up and down in the night and so have I. Up I got, down I went, and ignoring her insistence that she needed to go into the garden to wake up all the neighbours I managed to get her settled on the sofa. Sides scritched, ears fluffled, blanket 

tucked right around her she clearly decided all was fine and went back to sleep. Until, that is, 4:30am when another bloody good wuff was needed. Up I got again, down I went again, more ear fluffing, side scritching, blanket tucking and general grumbling about how the last thing I needed was to be up at 4:30am when I was meant to be doing a hard parkrun.

Oh the irony, because, you see, today I absolutely did need to be up at 4:30am to do parkrun, or at least I would have needed to be up at 4:30am to do parkrun if I'd actually remembered I was meant to be on a plane to Dublin this morning with 20 or so other people heading out to do Malahide Parkrun in Ireland. Only I didn't remember, I totally and utterly bloody forgot. I went back to bed, got what sleep I could, and woke up at 7:00am feeling a bit grumpy about said lack of sleep.

But I was up and I was going to run hard. I looked out at the frost and shoved all the proper "running fast" clobber back in the drawer before shoving on several layers of thermals. On second thoughts, I reasoned, freezing your arse of in January is for the kids. It was only when I looked at facebook at 8:15am to see whether Long Eaton parkrun was going ahead despite the icy conditions (it wasn't) that I got my little reminder that I was meant to be in a different bloody country.

So here's a picture of the complete spanner walking said noisy dog on West Park this morning after a treadmill 5k in place of the parkrun that was cancelled which in turn was in place of the parkrun I forgot to get on a plane for. 

At least the 5k was done with a respectable amount of effort, mostly fuelled by irritation.

Merely a Passenger

Sometimes when I run I feel like a passenger.  The head, the legs, the lungs, they all have a little thing going on and I simply can't steer them the way I want them to go until they work it out for themselves.  Today was one of those days.

There was nothing wild about today's run and no pup for company, just good old fashioned pavement pounding.  The plan, which to be fair was written by me on Sunday so is hardly set in stone, said 5-7 miles tempo depending on fatigue level.  I ended up doing 6 which I'd pretty much decided when I left the house and the pace was a tiny bit down on where I'd have liked.  It was a mental battle to get in to it today.  I was sure for the first mile I couldn't do what I wanted to, I just couldn't run even vaguely quickly any more.  The struggle to keep the pace up was real. 

"The legs are too tired," my head said, "this run will be a flop."  "Actually," piped up the legs, "we're only pretty damn tired, we've got a bit of life left in us, just a bit!"  "Shut up," my head replied, "you're too tired and and even if you're not this old bird is just not fit enough any more to do this shit.  She'll be huffing and puffing like a wheezy old bellows in five minutes, hey lungs?"  "Uuuuurrrrghhh" was all the lungs had to say.

Today the legs took over and did their thing leaving the rest of me with little choice but to follow.  The first mile was a bit under pace and the head was still shouting loud objections.  The legs ignored the head and as we turned up the hill so did the lungs.  The second mile came and went also a bit under, but by the third I was getting there and once over the top of Risley my head caught up.  "See legs, we told you she could do it!" said the gleeful head.  "And now we're going down... weeeeee!"  I was only a bit down on pace, I'd done the tough bit into the headwind and up the hills, and now it was just a coast back, or I could keep on putting the effort in and make up what pace I could.  "You can do it," said the head, "can't you legs?"

In the end I was only 4 seconds a mile down on target pace and for today, that's going to count as a win.

Legs 1 v 0 Head

A New Start for This Old Bird

I've written blogs before for specific events, but this is more generic.

I took up running a few years ago having never really been good at any sport.  I'd always stayed relatively fit and healthy but being the idea of being athletic or competing at sport was alien to me.  Running changed that.  I enjoyed running and I quickly realised that while I would never be an amazing athlete, I was significantly better than average for my age and gender, and that felt good.

I've done all sorts of things in the last four and a bit years, worked hard to run times I wanted at shorter distances, run half marathons, even run a marathon, and done OK at most of them.  But the last year or so things have gone dramatically downhill.  My health has been an issue, physically and mentally.  While a lot of the physical health issues are now managed, my mental health isn't good.  I'm managing, or mis-managing, despression, stress, anxiety and not always in the best way.  I eat rubbish, I've gained weight, I drink far too much, I sleep terribly, and I just don't feel like the fit healthy person I used to be.  I run a lot, but I don't feel good for it or do it as well as I used to which is in large part down to what I do around running.

I want to change that, I want the "old" me back.  Not necessarily in terms of winning prizes, running fast times etc, but a happier, healthier, athletic and energetic me.

The first thing I need to do is dramatically cut my drinking, and change my eating habits.  This isn't the first time I've tried to do this lately but a more balance "everything in moderation" approach seems more likely to be stuck to in the longer term.  I want a longer term change.

I also need to plan my training in a way I'll enjoy it, but not wear myself out.  I tend to be obsessive and then end up doing too much mid-level training, rather than a small amount of "A" grade training, and a lot of "C, D, E" grade running.  I believe the latter approach to be much more effective.  My training for Manchester Marathon in April has been going "ok" but I could be training much more effectively.

I'm also about to introduce the Wufflestuff element into my running.  My pup is old enough to start running with  me and getting out with her is something I've looked forward to immensely.  She can't do all my running with me, but she can start to join me on some of my runs which in turn will force me off road and get me out exploring.  Hopefully with the lovely Leeloo along I'll feel a bit less intimidated by the idea of being lost up a hill in Derbyshire somewhere, because it'll happen.  Often.

For now I have planned out my next two weeks of running taking me up to Farnborough Half Marathon on 26 January.  By then I want to be a good few pounds lighter, sober, and ready to take on the challenge of running hard for 13.1 miles. 

Oh, and I signed up for a 40 mile off road ultra race.  That.